Are you a liberal, a conservative, or a moderate?

There is an interesting exchange of ideas happening between two bloggers, Hendrik Hertzberg (a political commentator for the New Yorker) and Mike Kueber (a republican candidate for congress from Texas) about liberal and republican values.

According to Hertzberg being liberal means:

I value political liberty and political rights (freedom of thought, speech, conscience, and the press, the right to vote, civil equality) more highly than economic liberty and economic rights (property rights, freedom of enterprise, freedom from want, economic equality). I’m in favor of progressive taxation and generous public provision of education, pensions, and health care. I think people should have enough to eat and a roof over their heads, even if they haven’t done much to deserve it. I reject the idea that the market is the singular bedrock of society while everything else is a parasitical growth. I want government to do something about environmental degradation and gross social and economic inequality. I’m a secularist and a supporter of equal rights for women and gays. And when it comes to wanting World Peace, I’m practically a Miss America contestant. So I’m a liberal.

According to Kueber being conservative means:

Conservatives such as me don’t think that people should receive generous education, pensions, and health care when they haven’t done anything to deserve them. We think generous welfare causes people to become parasites, whereas the free market encourages people to be self-reliant. We want government to encourage equal opportunity, but we don’t want it to enforce equality by redistributing wealth. Although conservatives want World Peace, we believe that freedom isn’t free. And finally, I have to admit that conservatives are less willing to protect the environment and less likely to insist on the separation of church and state.